Who saw Kerry-O'Neill debate on C-SPAN last night?

[mountebank]

A replay from the Dick Cavett show from June, 1971.

First of all, I was amazed by John Kerry's composure and boldness. It was a VERY tense show, with a divided crowd. I am biased, of course, but I thought O'Neill came off poorly. His arguments didn't hold water and Kerry nailed him with the vet who could have come out to talk about war crimes right there on the show. So, some thoughts:

1) My ears perked up when I heard O'Neill reference John Vann when he stated that attacks were dropping in Vietnam (meaning of course that Vietnamization was working). A Bright Shining Lie by Neal Sheehan is the biography of John Vann as well as a history of the Vietnam conflict. In the book, Vann basically stands for everything delusional about the war. He was to die in a helicopter accident a little over a year after the airing of that show, having never fully realized the scope of his delusion. That O'Neill would reference him is fitting, in a tragic way.

Which leads to,

2) Just about everything O'Neill predicted during that show turned out to be false. If his ideology has been so effectively repudiated, why on Earth does he get another chance to trot it out 30 years later. The media should be calling him on it. I guess they don't watch C-SPAN and it's a long way to the archives.

Now an unrelated observation:

3) Did anyone else find it positively creepy when Cavett would pause for a station break and then pick up a bottle of Calgon or whatever and make this tired, disingenuous pitch for it? Here you have this tense debate over the course of the nation, and Cavett has to stop every once in a while to spout inanities about some ridiculous product. You can tell he was just hating it. It made me think about what effect that has on people, the mixing of gravity and levity. My favorite recent example is from Jon Stewart describing the crawl at the bottom of CNN while they showed photos of Uday and Qusay's corpses. It read: Beyonce hates the word bootylicious. While extremely funny, this mixing of the meaningful and meaningless must have some horrifying effect on people.

[calico1]

1. I am assuming you are fairly young?

Years ago it was customary for hosts of different shows to plug the products of their sponsors. And yes, many looked like they hated it. But I guess they had to do it! I missed the debate. Hope they repeat it.

[mountebank]

2. Fairly young, yes.

Young enough to associate it with parody. You can see why they stopped doing it. How could anyone believe it? Mostly you just hate the sponsor for making the host lie.

[pdx_prog]

3. I seen Oneill on Hardball

last week some time.....they pretty much shut the guy down there too. Funny....the guy has been grinding this axe for the last 30 years....lol.

Let go.....find forgiveness, you'll live longer....lol

I miss shows like Cavett.....where's the skilled mediators of old...

[PhuLoi]

4. O'Neill was incapable of maintaining eye contact for more than

a second or two. He presented himself as a whining little weasel. O'Neill is bereft of honor and would best serve veterans by self-administering a lead injection. To any Viet vets who happen to meet him on the streets: break the bitch's nose.

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

5. I watched it.